Fallout: New Vegas presents - The Lighter Side of Cannibalism!
by Lassroyale
Summary: [formerly: "Neurodegenerative - you know what? Nevermind."] One of the Female Courier's favorite snacks to ear after battle are finger sandwiches...literally, the severed fingers of dead Raiders. Arcade does not approve. (A/N: I accidentally deleted the orig. fic. *New* story noticeably tweaked & title changed. Written for KMM prompt essentially asking for "Cannibalism humor")


To be fair, Arcade had done himself a favor and kept his mouth shut for all this time, but he was currently having a hard time of it. Perhaps it was all of the blood that was soaking the into the ground... and his lab coat...and his skin (bits of person were in his _hair_, goddamn it!), that was the Super Sledge that went and broke the proverbial Brahmin's back.

His lips were pressed into a thin line as he cleaned some blood off of his glasses with the edge of his lab coat. Then, in what Courier liked to call his '_clinical doctor voice said_,' said: "You are aware that there are some very serious _diseases_ that can be caught from eating that raw, right?"

Courier glanced up at him from where she was slouched in the shade of a building, one slim shoulder propped casually against its side. She looked rumpled and without a care, like she _hadn't_ just slaughtered at least a dozen Raiders and their filthy mongrels. Rex was sitting attentively at her feet - begging - which really puzzled Arcade since there were plenty of...scraps, all lying in mangled heaps all over the damned place.

Courier stared at him for a few more minutes before hitching a shoulder into a languid shrug. "Oh?" was all she offered in reply, followed by an exaggerated roll her eyes. A vein near Arcade's temple throbbed as Courier dismissed him with a tilt of her head, and instead resumed nibbling delicately on the bloody finger upon which she'd been snacking - _snacking!_ Like it was one of those goddamn hors d'oeuvres they'd occasionally serve at the "fancy" (_that_ was a misnomer, surely) parties that were supposedly thrown at the Tops, and not the severed finger of a Raider with godknows_what_ crusted underneath its fingernail.

Arcade grit his teeth against the sight, his spine stiffening and his lip curling ever-so-slightly, at the affront. Courier was deliberately rubbing his face in it, because she knew perfectly well what he was taking about and was choosing to pretend otherwise - just to get under his skin. And, loathe as he was to admit it, it was working: the smirk that pulled at the corner of Courier's mouth was taunting at best, and, at worst, one that Arcade found suddenly to be immensely and impossibly, _irritating._

Her smile sharpened with amusement. Arcade paused what he had been about to say, his eyes narrowing in suspicion; he'd had the niggling sense for some time now, that the only reason Courier chose to bring _him_ along on her endless stream of batshit insane escapades, and not, say, _'Scarily Awesome Sniper Guy Boone,'_ was strictly for her own amusement. That had to be the case, especially considering how much she seemed to enjoy pressing Arcade's buttons; all of them, all at once. There was no other (good) reason he could think of for choosing him as a companion over someone like Boone. Well, aside from the fact that she needed more patching up than a rotting Ghoul, of course. ("Oh, silly Arcade thought you _knew_ running headlong into a swarm of Cazadores was bad for your health.") There was always _that._

At Arcade's momentary lapse, Courier only offered up a perfectly casual, "Oh well," before taking another bite of the half-eaten Raider finger.

Arcade scowled, quickly getting his thoughts back on track. "Not, '_oh well_'," Arcade snapped, ignoring the woman's ever-widening grin. Jesus, there were bits of Raider stuck between her teeth! "Raiders are notoriously filthy. You could accidentally ingest a bad prion and become afflicted by a _neurodegenerative disease_, and then? That's _it_; it's game over. Your brain will begin to degenerate from the onset of abnormally folded proteins causing you to-" Arcade abruptly broke off from his somewhat rapid-fire explanation and gave her a hard look. "Are you," he paused, squinting at her,"are you even _listening_ to me?"

Courier shrugged a slim shoulder and spat out a fingernail, before tossing what was left of the Raiders's finger down to Rex. "Not really," she replied, picking at a piece of flesh stuck in her teeth with the tip of her pinky. "You lost me around 'neurodegenerative'." She shrugged again, and it was one of those shrugs that spoke volumes; in this case, it quite clearly stated that she was rather bored with the whole conversation. She bent and picked up another severed finger from the ground and gave it a perfunctory wipe on her pants, before biting into it. She ignored the dirty look Arcade shot her.

He silently counted backwards from ten, slowly. "Fine," he said, brusquely. He pointed at the new finger that Courier was stripping clean with her straight white teeth. "At least _cook_ your food for godsake. It's healthier and it should kill any diseases stewing in all that raw..." he trailed off, wincing when Courier bit deeply into the knuckle with the sound of crunching bone, "...meat," he finished weakly.

"I'll take it under advisement, Doc," she replied, her mouth twisting. A spot of red blood glistened on her bottom lip.

Arcade stomped away. Some days he didn't even know why he tried.

(The End.)


End file.
